One Incontrovertible, Unequivocal, Undeniable Fact Which Refutes the Diary

[David Orsam]

The question is, did Mike claim that Anne's were the real brains behind the diary? If not, was he lying about this, or just confused over the nature and extent of each other's input? Why would he be dictating it for Anne to write into the guard book if it was largely her own work? Would she have considered him capable of drafting it, while she just checked it through and corrected any errors?

There's no need to assume that Anne was "the real brains" behind the diary. Mike could have been the creative one (and you have told me that he thought he could write a novel) but you have stressed that he was capable of making silly errors (such as confusing 9/11 with 11/9). All I'm saying is that someone like his wife could have prevented those silly errors from going into the Diary. That's why I used the word "editor".

[David Orsam]

How very convenient for you, David.

That is such a strange comment. Based on the fact of his Victorian Diary acquisition, I'm working from the assumption that what he said in his affidavit in January 1995 was the truth. That's all. For that reason, it doesn't matter how many lies he told at other times.

No, let's not. If Mike was aware that his affidavits must contain the truth, and if he was suddenly willing and able to provide it (apart from the dodgy dating), what does that say about the dog's dinner of fact and fiction he had come up with previously? If he could work out, by January 1995, what had been real and what had been fantasy throughout 1994, who waved the magic wand?

This all based on the assumption that he couldn't separate fact from fiction and needed someone to "wave a magic wand". I know he told lots of lies but perhaps he told the truth in his affidavit.

Until you can satisfactorily explain the purchase of the Victorian Diary with blank pages in March 1992 all your posts are quite frankly achieving nothing.

[David Orsam]

He would have had to have a memory of genuinely sievelike qualities to have confused 1992 with 1990 when he was only in 1994.

Well the affidavit in question was signed in 1995, as has been posted in this thread on numerous occasions as recently as yesterday. So someone would have to have a memory of genuinely sievelike qualities to have got the year wrong. Hey, it happens.

[David Orsam]

Well the affidavit in question was signed in 1995, as has been posted in this thread on numerous occasions as recently as yesterday. So someone would have to have a memory of genuinely sievelike qualities to have got the year wrong. Hey, it happens.

Let's not forget this passage from Inside Story, referring to a report in the Liverpool Daily Post of 28 September 1993. It says:

"Only forty-one, Barrett had aged visibly over the last few months and now walked slowly with a stick, the result, he told Brough, of a stroke which left him with limited use of his right side and which he blamed on the stresses and strains involved in living with the Ripper story."

[David Orsam]

Bit of a bummer for you then that he recalled purchasing the guard book in 1990, two years before his purchase of the 1891 diary, followed almost immediately by the supposed writing of 'the' diary in 11 days, followed almost immediately by taking it to London.

Except that does not recall purchasing the guard book "two years before his purchase of the 1891 diary" because in his affidavit he says he purchased the 1891 diary before the guard book.

So that's not a bummer for me but it is one for you bearing in mind that it is an established fact that he purchased the 1891 diary in late March 1992.

What did Barrett think he was doing in the two years between bidding for the guard book in 1990 and taking it to London in April 1992?

Except that he doesn't say in his affidavit that he took the guard book to London in April 1992. The suggestion is that he did so later in 1990. As I've said from the start, if we adjust the chronology to take the known fact of his purchase of the diary into account we can see what might well have happened.

Since he failed to specify what kind of 'diary' he needed, and what kind of diary he needed like a hole in the head, it turned out to be the latter - more like an appointments diary for 1891, which would have required (at the very least) the ripping out of a page here and a page there, to be left with the blank pages he asked for in between, rather than all together at the end.

If that advert was really meant to provide a book that could contain all of Mike and Anne's hard work, it wasn't their finest hour, was it?

Most people forming a plan where events are outside their control have a Plan A and Plan B. I'm suggesting that Plan A was to get a suitable Victorian diary from around the period, remove any traces of the date and author, and use that to ensure that it would pass any scientific testing. When this didn't work, Mike moved onto Plan B and went to an auction and purchased the guard book, which was good enough. To me that all seems straightforward.

What simply doesn't work is that having the undated Victorian guard book in his possession he advertises for a diary from the narrow period of 1880-1890 in order to write a "taster" in a "similar" diary for Doreen. I mean, leaving aside that he fails to include the colour and size of the type of diary he is after in the advert, a guard book from, say, the 1930s would work just as well for this bizarre plan wouldn't it, if he's after something that looks old? It doesn't need to be from the 1880s or 1890s at all yet you don't seem to think it's strange that he was asking for a diary from that specific period.

It only makes sense on my version of events where he needs paper from that particular period in order for it to pass scientific tests.

[Iconoclast]

Well the affidavit in question was signed in 1995, as has been posted in this thread on numerous occasions as recently as yesterday. So someone would have to have a memory of genuinely sievelike qualities to have got the year wrong. Hey, it happens.

Had they read the posts, of course.

Not everything in this brilliant thread gets read because it's so voluminous and some of us do actually have jobs, you know!

[John Wheat]

Had they read the posts, of course.

Not everything in this brilliant thread gets read because it's so voluminous and some of us do actually have jobs, you know!

It's not a brilliant thread because the Diary is clearly a Hoax.

[caz]

Can I first say that a synonym is not a "definition". To avoid any argument over this, here is Webster's definition of the word "synonym".

"one of two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses".

Secondly, can I once again draw your attention to the second definition of "untruth" in Websters at the link you provided:

"a statement known by its maker to be untrue and made in order to deceive"

I'm glad to see that you have noted this in a subsequent post.

I note that you skipped over the first definition at that same link:

"a false idea or belief"

So would you maintain that a false idea or belief [followed by the synonyms 'error' and 'delusion'] can only equate to a wilful lie or deliberate deception? If so, I can only apologise humbly for my own poor use of English, which triggered this whole 'untruth' thingummy whatsit.

Let's assume you are correct so I can try and meet you half way by rewording my original observation:

Not only did Mike's forgery claims fail to demonstrate that he was there when the diary was created, but his confession statement was in part demonstrably untrue.

Is this a fair and reasonable compromise, David?

The hard part is working out his state of mind when making that statement. If he was telling the truth as he perceived it, while struggling with the effects of alcohol misuse, and really really wanted to be believed, even if it meant being charged with fraud, is it not fairly remarkable that he failed to include a single detail that demonstrated he must have had inside knowledge of a recent hoax?

Might it not make a better argument to suggest he knew exactly what he was doing, by including the odd demonstrably untrue detail as an insurance policy in case he needed a "get out of jail free" card, and by not revealing anything that could actually prove his involvement?

After all, it was the easiest thing in the world for Mike to convince the public at large, by the start of 1995, that he had authored James Maybrick's confession and was making a clean breast of it. End of story - forever. The neater trick would have been to convince the police at the same time - with the same claims - that the only fake he had authored was his own confession.

So was that outcome more likely to have been achieved by accident or design?

Love,

Caz
X

[caz]

Personally speaking, John, I couldn't care less who forged the diary: whether it was Mike Barrett, Tony Devereux, Uncle Tom Cobley or A.N. Other.

Let's go with Uncle Tom Cobley then and be done with it.

My only interest is whether it was written by Maybrick or not, and thus whether Maybrick was Jack the Ripper or not.

That's intriguing, David. I have no interest in the 'whether' because I have no doubt at all that Maybrick's handwriting does not appear in that diary. Thus, he should not even be a ripper suspect.

But what we are faced with is Mike Barrett's sworn affidavit in which he explains how it was forged and who did it.

But there is no need to be 'faced' with it, considering Mike's status as the quintessential unreliable witness.

I've been exploring on this forum whether his account his plausible.

'Plausible' is subjective in a case like this, which is why everyone sees different degrees of 'plausible' in Mike's account. Your 'plausible' may be the next person's 'risible'.

There are many hypothetical possibilities but I can't see why I should favour any of them over what Barrett says happened.

I just don't get why anyone would consider Mike's word more reliable than that of everyone who has ever said anything to undermine it.

The diary was declared a fake (and likely a recent one) a year before Mike's first confession. It still would have been declared a likely recent fake, for the same reasons, had Mike not come with the territory and provided the comfort of his sworn affidavit. So while it's handy to wheel Mike out and give him a prod every five minutes, he isn't needed to prove anything even if he could.

Imagine if someone living in Battlecrease at any point had claimed to have discovered the diary and gone public with it, donating it freely to any group of historians or forensic scientists who cared to examine it. What difference would that have made to the shrill verdict of the Sunday Times, which was based supposedly on the document itself, and not dependent on a lousy provenance?

I'm willing to bet its 'finder' would still be viewed by the cynical as the diary's creator. Different motivation and no confession? No problem really. We can do perfectly well without Mike, can't we?

Love,

Caz
X

[John G]

Hi Caz,

Assuming Mike Barrett wasn't the forger, do you think he knew who had forged the diary?

[David Orsam]

I note that you skipped over the first definition at that same link:

"a false idea or belief"

It's not a question of me skipping over anything Caz. Let me remind you I asked you in my #2670 when I first drew your attention to the second definition in Webster:

"Did you miss this definition given by Websters of "untruth"?

"a statement known by its maker to be untrue and made in order to deceive."

If that was not the sense in which you were using the word when you said that parts of Barrett's statement were "demonstrably untrue" then what was the point you were trying to make?"

You replied in #2738 but only to say that the point you were trying to make was "That parts of Barrett's statement were demonstrably untrue". This was a non-answer rather than an answer, repeating your statement rather than explaining it. Had you provided an actual genuine answer to my question back then we wouldn't still need to be discussing it now.

[David Orsam]

So would you maintain that a false idea or belief [followed by the synonyms 'error' and 'delusion'] can only equate to a wilful lie or deliberate deception? If so, I can only apologise humbly for my own poor use of English, which triggered this whole 'untruth' thingummy whatsit.

What I'm saying Caz, to be clear, is that the sense you in which you must have been using the word was in respect of wilful lie or deliberate deception for what would be the purpose of highlighting innocent errors in Barrett's affidavit?

[David Orsam]

Let's assume you are correct so I can try and meet you half way by rewording my original observation:

Not only did Mike's forgery claims fail to demonstrate that he was there when the diary was created, but his confession statement was in part demonstrably untrue.

Is this a fair and reasonable compromise, David?

Not if by "demonstrably untrue" you simply mean that there are some errors in Barret's statement. From the very start (before discussing this with you) I have said that there are errors in Barrett's statement so, in that context, what's the purpose of you saying that one can demonstrate that there are errors in Barrett's statement?

But if it makes you happy you can, of course, say it.

[David Orsam]

The hard part is working out his state of mind when making that statement. If he was telling the truth as he perceived it, while struggling with the effects of alcohol misuse, and really really wanted to be believed, even if it meant being charged with fraud, is it not fairly remarkable that he failed to include a single detail that demonstrated he must have had inside knowledge of a recent hoax?

I fail to understand what you mean by "single detail".

Does the purchase of the 1891 diary not count as a "single detail"?

He does also say that the guard book was originally a photograph album containing photographs which he says he removed, and I believe that there is forensic support for this notion.

He also gives the origin of the quote "O Costly Intercourse of Death" and states that the first word was incorrectly entered in the diary as "Oh".

There are plenty of other details in the affidavit (and you certainly haven't so far demonstrated them to be untrue) but in the case of the O&L purchase it doesn't appear that their records for March-April 1992 have been checked so it's hard to demonstrate anything one way or the other in this respect.

[David Orsam]

Might it not make a better argument to suggest he knew exactly what he was doing, by including the odd demonstrably untrue detail as an insurance policy in case he needed a "get out of jail free" card, and by not revealing anything that could actually prove his involvement?

I find that an overly convoluted theory which attributes to Barrett characteristics of a master criminal which you otherwise tell me he did not possess. No, if he was deliberately not telling the truth in his affidavit then it's far more likely that he was protecting others who he did not want to name. The alternative is that he did not know the truth because his part in the conspiracy was limited solely to attempting (but failing) to obtain a diary for the real forgers to use. But I think that the most likely explanation (regardless of whether he was telling the truth or lying) is poor memory and/or brain functioning due to alcoholism and ill health.